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A look into the finances of SpaceX

wsj.com

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Re: A look into the finances of SpaceX

#131

Post by pixl97 »

hef19898 wrote: post #31
justrealist wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's pretty modest for a company with 100% y/y growth on revenue already in the billions.

Assuming rocket launch demand continues to grow exponentially, which I kind of doubt. Also, I'd love to see how Starlink is accounted for.

>Assuming rocket launch demand continues to grow exponentially

The issue here is the market doesn't know where we are on the S curve. If we've looking at space shuttle prices, we are at the end of the curve. If SpaceX pulls off reusability with the starship, then I'm going to make guesses we are much lower on the curve then most expect.

If they can get 'cheap' launches of 100-200T to orbit then a massive number of new possibilities open up and SpaceX won't sit around as just a cheap transport monopoly, they expand horizontally into other space based markets.

Re: A look into the finances of SpaceX

#132

Post by samr71 »

georgeg23 wrote: post #77
samr71 wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This has elements of truth but is a conspiracy theory the way you describe it. If you listen to Musk, or listen to people who work for Musk, or the people who work for those people, they all say that the point of SpaceX is to enable human colonization of Mars. It's not just a marketing strategy to acquire talent (unless you think they're all lying -- hence the conspiracy aspect. Now, to do that, they'll need to scrat…

The only person that has to lie is Musk. That's why SpaceX is run as an autocracy. Everyone else drinks the Mars Kool aid. People who have been around a while connect the dots. To be more precise, the company is run by the DoD with significant technical and financial assistance. Elon is the main conduit between those deep resource and the rest of the company. He regularly meets with all teams to ensure they are align…

This can be true AND Mars can be Musk's #1 priority.

Musk wants to build a Mars colony. DOD wants Brilliant Pebbles / SDI. Perhaps a trade can be made? You'll need much of the same tech for each.

If SpaceX is run by DOD, why is it not run by DOD? Why pretend otherwise? The best engineers won't work to build SDI? Thousands work for Boeing/Lockheed. They're all that much worse?

Re: A look into the finances of SpaceX

#133

Post by moffkalast »

reso wrote: post #107
bell-cot wrote: post #35

From Reuters... > In 2022, revenue doubled to $4.6 billion, helping the company reduce its loss last year to $559 million from $968 million, the WSJ reported. > The company reported about $5.2 billion in total expenses for 2022, up from $3.3 billion the year earlier, according to the report. That $5.2B of expenses got 61 successful, production Falcon rocket launches in 2022. Vs. some pretty-reasonable estimates put t…

You can't compare falcon to SLS because Falcon cannot do what SLS does. You can't compare SpaceX's figures to NASA because NASA has many, many more reporting obligations than SpaceX. Every report on Falcon 9 costs has made this mistake forever. SpaceX does not release their full costs. What numbers we have for them are PR releases. Meanwhile, NASA's budgets are public and comprehensive, and they have legal parameters…

61 launches is quite a lot. The SLS can do about 100 tons to LEO, a standard F9 can do 22 tons albeit with a much smaller fairing.

So in total if you split your vehicle up and assemble it in orbit you can launch one that's almost 5x the size for the same price. Maybe more like 3x + extra engineering overhead costs for the orbital assembly, but still much more bang for the buck. The lunar gateway is planned to be a station anyway so those costs will have to be paid regardless.

Re: A look into the finances of SpaceX

#134

Post by foota »

loandbehold wrote: post #54
foota wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Depreciation happens over several years, whereas other expenses are immediate, right?

oh i see what you are saying. so depreciation vs expensing all at once.

It's more than just a one time thing though, if you assume capex increases over time then it's a permanent reduction in expenses.

Re: A look into the finances of SpaceX

#135

Post by justapassenger »

edgyquant wrote: post #121
justapassenger wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

P/E is price to earnings, not revenue. SpaceX is insanely overvalued.

That’s debatable when they have a huge majority of launch market share at this point.

They have huge majority of market that’s much smaller than their valuation, and isn’t growing anywhere close at the pace they predicted (if they didn’t burn their own money to lunch hundreds of starlinks, their growth in launches would be pretty flat).

But anyway, op used P/E ratio to justify spacex valuation, in a totally wrong way. Their P/E ratio is in thousands (assuming there’s no creative accounting to show that profit, as they have many money burning projects and keep on raising billions). And they own a lot of the market and market itself isn’t growing fast.

You can justify their valuation with lofty goals and mission, if that’s your thing. But not with financial numbers and market sizes.

Re: A look into the finances of SpaceX

#136

Post by dabluecaboose »

reso wrote: post #107
bell-cot wrote: post #35

From Reuters... > In 2022, revenue doubled to $4.6 billion, helping the company reduce its loss last year to $559 million from $968 million, the WSJ reported. > The company reported about $5.2 billion in total expenses for 2022, up from $3.3 billion the year earlier, according to the report. That $5.2B of expenses got 61 successful, production Falcon rocket launches in 2022. Vs. some pretty-reasonable estimates put t…

You can't compare falcon to SLS because Falcon cannot do what SLS does. You can't compare SpaceX's figures to NASA because NASA has many, many more reporting obligations than SpaceX. Every report on Falcon 9 costs has made this mistake forever. SpaceX does not release their full costs. What numbers we have for them are PR releases. Meanwhile, NASA's budgets are public and comprehensive, and they have legal parameters…

>Falcon cannot do what SLS does.

Thus far, SLS has only done once what Falcon does on the regular: Launch a payload into orbit

Re: A look into the finances of SpaceX

#137

Post by Someone »

justrealist wrote: post #26
oldgradstudent wrote: post #16

How are Starlink launches accounted for? Are they considered revenue? Capex? Expenses? I guess it depends on the exact corporate structure.

I can't imagine any reasonable way to book it as revenue.

As oldgradstudent said: it depends on the exact corporate structure.

Move Starlink into a separate entity, have SpaceX build satellites and perform launches for them, and it becomes SpaceX revenue (and Starlink costs)

Have SpaceX rent out those satellites to Starlink, and the picture changes again.

Re: A look into the finances of SpaceX

#138

Post by justapassenger »

cryptoz wrote: post #96
justapassenger wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

P/E is price to earnings, not revenue. SpaceX is insanely overvalued.

Some amount of the value baked-in assumes that SpaceX will earn money on any of the thousands of revenue sources possible in the creation and running of the first large-scale city on Mars. Maybe you think it isn't going to happen - and sure there is some risk (!) - but in the successful case, SpaceX should be worth many trillions. At least.

It’s amazing that after hacker community got to see how full of shit guy making those promises is, with Twitter, some still believe that in other areas he’s not lying.

Re: A look into the finances of SpaceX

#139

Post by s1artibartfast »

hef19898 wrote: post #22
justrealist wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Get a job at SpaceX The equity upside at hire # 12,001, when the market cap is $150B... is probably not great. I mean it might be a ton of fun, I just wouldn't do it for the 100x returns.

Hold on, they have an evaliation of 150 billion , more than 30x the revenue?

4X Revenue and 25 percent profit margin gets you there. Or 8x and a 50% likelihood of getting there. A gamble for sure

In my opinion, the more interesting part is the valuation in light of no tangible exit strategy.

I wonder what time frame investors are looking at in order to realize their gains.

Re: A look into the finances of SpaceX

#140

Post by htss2013 »

Isn't it amazing that you can become the richest person in the world by building companies that lose money? By lose money I mean all money ever put into the company versus profits made.

The idea of creating a profitless company that somehow makes you personally rich used to be thought of as a fluke. Yes it's possible but it shouldn't happen and aside from extreme luck it won't.

Something has changed. Losing money and getting rich anyway has gone from fluke to something else, and it feels like we are lying about how the game really works.

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